1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming system, an image forming method and an image forming control program which can minimize the waste of colorants when outputting a printed image. In particular, the present invention relates to an image forming system, an image forming method and an image forming control program which can minimize the application of colorants, such as ink, toner, dyes, pigments, etc., on unnecessary or discarded cutouts of an outputted printed image.
2. Description of Related Art
In many image forming processes, a finished product is obtained by printing to media and cutting portions of the printed result. In these and other processes involving printing, colorant costs are a consideration. By reducing colorant usage, the cost of producing a finished product can be decreased. In a processes involving cutting an image after the image is output, the printed media is sent to a cutter which cuts the media to a user's specifications. After cutting, a sorting process is performed to keep the desired cutouts and to discard the undesired cutouts. In such a process, having colorant present on the undesired cutouts that are discarded is unnecessary, wastes colorant and increases printing costs.
One approach to removing colorants from discarded areas of the printed media is to require users to manually edit the print image to remove images from areas intended to be discarded. However, editing an original print image is often not desired because important information may be present in the original image which should not be discarded. Also, creating a copy of the print image solely to remove colors from discarded areas is tedious and time-consuming for the user. Even with such a hand-modified “colorant-optimized” copy of the print image, changes to the copy can be very difficult to make as circumstances or requirements change. For example, if the cut image is changed, it becomes necessary to re-edit the copy to remove colorant from newly discarded areas and to restore colorant to previously discarded areas. It is very tedious for users to perform these manual steps, and the last step of re-editing the copy is very difficult without the original print image. Thus, there is a considerable amount of tedious work required by the user to ensure colorant usage is not wasted, especially for large collections of documents.